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Kaelib
History Cheers swelled and descended back into applause as the body finally ended its twitching and began to slowly sway and turn with the night's breeze, joining the garishly-dressed effigies in mute decoration above the square's celebrations. Another brigand approached the massive festooned oak from which the lifeless forms of his mates hung among the lanterns, the doomed man prodded on by a guardsman towards his execution to the jeers of the revelers. Kaelib Feld scanned the crowd briefly, regarding the merrymakers with the same antipathy he'd held toward the highwayman before turning away to fix his eyes on the figure above. The rough form of a New Kalian noble swiveled slowly towards him, before twisting away again as though ashamed. A small placard hung on the still representation, identifying the effigy as Muriel Feld the Coward, who was run down and killed by Napolite Coursers as he attempted to flee the city without his wife and children, leaving his own eldest son to stand in command of the garrison and hold the city in the name of New Kalia. Solemnly, he let his eyes wander from where the straw-packed form danced on its lonely noose to a bough mere feet away where Nadia Feld had been hanged following the "liberation" of Gulltown by the riotous commoners of Napolia. His mother had been the kindest heart the city had known, enriching the lives of everyone she encountered, pouring every gold she could cajole from Muriel into the welfare of the city's poorest districts. None of that had mattered to the bellicose, hateful fools that made Napolia's forces; she was guilty of the crime of being a noble - a crime Kaelib himself barely escaped sentencing for by the simple virtue of being the youngest son and being left with next to nothing but a position with the guard. Kaelib’s elder sister had chosen not to tempt fate, she took her own life in the estate of her noble husband rather than allow herself the indignities of being captured by the Napolite soldiers. It had cost Kaelib dearly to bribe the gravekeeper to give his mother, brother, and sister a decent burial in defiance of the Napolites who ordered all nobles would be buried in indignity, among the common graves of the poor and diseased. After several years of struggling under that debt, Kaelib had learned to lie, deceive, blackmail, steal and solicit bribes. It was enough to make him grateful none of his siblings could see him now. Another sickening crack and bout of cheers snapped Kaelib from his dour thoughts. Wheeling away from the base festivities, he took a quick draw from his hip flask and wound himself past the crowd, brushing revelers aside with a glare of pure contempt. All around him the people of Moira's Victory milled and congregated, flitting from distraction to distraction. Children gawked at puppet shows as their fathers laid bets on wrestling and boxing matches. Wine and bread flowed freely provided by the gracious democratic government of the city, all provided to the people with their own taxes in order to garner goodwill with common entertainments. Finally freeing himself from the square he rounded towards his home, pausing briefly as a frightened cry tore from the window of the small bungalow causing him to wince. A pair of slender arms closed the window from within, cutting the noise from the outside world. Inside his wife would be dealing with his sons terrors and delusions, panic attacks that seemed to start without warning as the child would fight and flee apparitions no one else could see. For a long moment Kaelib stood at the doorway to his home, feeling the despondency rise in his chest before he turned away and began walking again. He'd given his family everything he could and yet they had nothing. Before he'd married Kaye, he'd promised her everything. He had contacts, family, wealth, and education... then Gulltown fell and became Moira's Victory. His rise through the ranks of the guard should have been meteoric. Instead, the commoners had placed one of their own as the captain of the guard; an uneducated, petty, and low-blooded fool of an idealist who believed in the ability of the common man to self-rule and choose their own leaders despite their narrow mindedness and inability to think past their own basest needs. Nine years it took to become just a sergeant under that contemptible oaf of a Captain who refused to acknowledge his education and considerable talents because of his scorn for Kaelib's nobility. His fists clenched as his mind surged and waned from anger to grief and back again while his feet carried him again to the door of the Prancing Pony. Kaelib took a moment to register where he had found himself again and with a sigh, entered the bar again. History -TLDR version *Youngest son of well connected nobles. *Father was a senior adminstrator to Gulltown - died fleeing the city *Mother was hanged for being a noble by Napolia. *Elder brother, Varris, commanded the New Kalian garrison - died trying to repel Napolia. *Elder sister wed to a nobleman - killed herself so as to not face rape or execution by invaders. *Married at 16 to a young crush, Kaye, the daugher of a minor noble. *One son, named Varris after Kaelib's elder brother, seven years old, has delusions and night terrors. *Spent the last twelve years in the guard, sergeant for 3 years. *Suffers from alcoholism. Somewhat cowardly, elitist, and very bitter. Journal - Sessions 1-3 For the first time I find myself unable to talk to anyone, no one to trust, no one to lead, no one to care for, or to come home to. Perhaps this is why, for the first time, I find myself trusting my thoughts to a page. My home is gone. The last I saw of "Moira's Victory" it was a growing bonfire; the streets and markets I patrolled being stripped of life and substance down to a black smoke that faded into the night sky. Somewhere in there, or on another ship is my son, Varris. I pray, though I do not know to what, that he has made it to one of the evacuating boats and that it has fared better than the doomed vessel I had boarded. I am not entirely alone, though I may as well be. I find myself on the same island as the same despicable delinquents who stepped over my dying wife and scorned my son to loot my home. What connection they have to the marauders who burned Gulltown I do not know, but their timing in arrival and disdain for the law and watch is more than suspicious, as is their story of how they arrived to my house. Not only did they not call for the guard in a situation a man of ANY moral standing would, but they were utterly unconcerned that the city watch would be called from my wife's scream, which calls to question whether she had screamed as they testify or if they had known the watch would be too preoccupied with assassins and invaders to interfere. Among them is Kaye's murderer, that is clear. Homes in the commons where I have been forced to live are closely spaced, a scream in the evening would have been heard by all, and yet they claim that is what drew them before they robbed my home. Furthermore, the poison that took her life is the same that killed Gadiath and nearly took Yavin and myself. The poisoned wine arrived on the boat with the Xolmeth and the almost skeletal boy that follows him like a starved puppy. It was slow working and agonizing. As I discovered, it took time to work -time enough for Yavin to find and devour a pile of mushrooms in some retarded fit of desperation- but they claimed she was dead before they got there and they ran immediately upon hearing the scream. The obvious suspect is the hateful, dogma-addled Xolmeth. He started ranting his judgmental and deluded motive almost as soon as I began asking questions: the wine is sacred to him, and apparently holier than human life. To the innocent mind, being accused of what you have not done is an injustice, and the innocent mind will push back and try to assert its innocents. The innocent mind does not make only a cursory attempt to deny guilt before trying to justify why the victim deserved to die. The guilty man would place the blame on the victim rather than himself, exactly as Adaelphon did. He eagerly confessed as soon as I began to question him on the boat that my wife deserved to die for the "sin" of drinking it. He had access to the wine within the proper timeline. Gadiath clearly did not know it was poisoned, but I've worked with him long enough to know he likes to sample his "product. Most likely it was poisoned shortly before I was given the wine if Gadiath did not know. The Xolmeth had come in on the same boat and could have gained access to the casks to poison them in the desire to see any "unworthy" drinkers of the wine dead. He had exited the boat at the right time to see Gadiath offer me the wine as a gift, and must have followed me home. Since Kaye does not drink, he must have forced the wine down her throat and later returned for the evidence he'd realized he left, the bottle. Unfortunately, my new townsfellows - the Keepers of the Flame - are just as shortsighted, uneducated, and willfully ignorant as the damned Napolites. The warnings I brought them of the Xolmeth's instability and murderous nature went entirely unheeded and further, I was prevented from seeking justice. Had they listened, one of their own would not be missing a leg - Adaelphon turned on them without a moment's hesitation to help the same savages that shot him in the back, if that makes any damned sense. It is clear, despite his promises to slay me, that he did not turn sides on my account however. My back had been turned on him after he got knocked down by an arrow, a stupid move on my part that left him with ample time and opportunity to have killed me if that was his primary motive in changing sides. Unfortunately, the battle had been too chaotic to see what had happened to him or why he switched. I'd been too busy commanding the Keepers to prevent a complete slaughter. Attacking without first attempting discourse was foolish. We had outnumbered the Ashen more than two to one, so apparently Yavin was correct that the Ashen were bluffing, but they must have had a motive to do so rather than simply running. Speaking with them, finding their motive, and offering a solution is a better solution than attacking a force that has unknown numbers and the only known positions of which -the captain and the man we heard in the brush- were on opposite sides of our forces suggesting they had us surrounded. With so many unknowns and none of the variables that were known being positive, why would he gamble on all our lives? Stupid. I was left with no recourse but to take command of the Keeper in order to save them as well as myself. Why did the captain attack rather than attempt to speak with the Ashen, however? The Keepers claimed they had not removed the People of the Ash because they were being merciful in avoiding conflict; clearly that is a lie, so what did they not tell me? The last three days have offered nothing but violence and questions. Why did the "gypsies" kill both sides of the delegation if they were New Kalian or Napolite? Plausible deniability? Perhaps it was Rivilian hoping to see Napolia continually weakened through war? What connection does the Xolmeth poisoning have with the assassins that showed up to finish the job? The gypsies were clearly professionals, that much was clear when I met them. They're weapons and casualness were obvious indicators of that and their purpose was fairly obvious by their timing. They outnumbered my squad three to one, what choice did I have but take the money and let them through? Had I sounded the alarm there, I'd have had my throat slit and then the assassins would have slipped off Dia-knows-where. Discretion at least would have allowed me to alert the captain and rally enough men to arrest them, but the captain was nowhere near the delegation he was supposed to be protecting. He should have been with the guards at the villa. He had left sergeants to command all the patrols in the city so he and his lieutenants could rub shoulders with the politicians at the villa, but then he was nowhere near it when they were attacked? How did an entire army and a fleet sneak so close to the city without any advance warning? How did the south gate fall so quickly that attackers were within the city before the alarm sounded? There are more questions than answers, more bodies than questions. I have two names, though they are probably aliases, Susan and Jarrum. One I wounded, though I do not know which, and despite his/her wounds he managed to outrun me and seemingly teleport up the rooftops. I took the weapons from one of the attacker's bodies, a shortsword and long knife, the only belongings that hadn't been somehow burnt to a crisp with their owner who strangely looked as though he'd burned to death though there was no other signs of fire. I will need to find someone who can help me identify the origins of the weapons. It's a long shot, but I have little else to go off of except anything more I can glean from the Joryn, Vera, or Lagereth who came in with the assassins. For now, I have no way of speaking to them as they have fallen in with the People of the Ash, the other faction on this damned island. The People of the Ash, as near as I can tell, are a pack of savages who imitate the local wildcats since they have nothing else to culturally aspire to. The Keepers seem to regard them as dangerous and unstable rebels who are bound together by nothing but distrust for King Leopold. I can understand this mistrust as Leopold's clearly not what he claims to be and has managed to extend his life and gain hold of the island by means of subterfuge, blood magic, and of course, religion: that old fall back of the uneducated and those inadequately prepared for the bleak harshness of reality. There is only one explanation for his longevity, and that is magic. As his rejuvenation requires sacrifice, he is likely a Jopec Blood Mage. The hatred and mistrust he spreads towards Great Ones is probably a check against the only ones who could recognize and counter his power or get others off the island and out from under his thumb. I'm sure that is also why he insists on meeting everyone as they enter, so he can find any Great Ones before others have too much chance to meet with him. I should find what I can that this Asher person may have left, there may be something that can help me off this worthless hunk of rock. Additionally, the roamer, Joryn confirmed the apprentice of the Great One from Gulltown is alive, he may be able to assist me in getting off this rock so that I may resume the search for my son. It is perhaps a long shot that my son is alive, but the "seer" woman who saved me claims my son is alive knew of him without a word from me. For now that gives me hope, getting off this island to find my son is priority, and I have at least a few ideas on how to proceed. Contacting Lagreth is probably my best bet. Leopold fears the Great Ones, and it is probably only a Great One who can get people off the island, which would weaken his influence. I can likely leave the Keepers for a short trip under the guise of visiting Serai for more answers about my son, though I will need to take the slave boy with me to send into the Ashen camp since I may be recognized. Before that, I will need to heal up and and do some research regarding Asher, the temple, Leopold, the Keepers, the Ashen, and this island. For now, I may as well try to seek promotion and a more stable guard position that does not require getting sent out on expeditions. Even if I choose to work with the delinquents I crashed here with, I may be able to find answers here with the Keepers that they cannot with the Ashen.